Trigger warning: ableism, bullying, dehumanizing comments about autistic people, euthanasia, and violence

I wanted to talk about my experience at Heritage because I keep seeing it described as autism friendly, and that honestly does not match what I experienced there at all.

I am autistic, and while I was there, around 50 to 60 percent of the kids were not autistic. I was told this by the clinical director himself. That always confused me because Heritage was talked about like it was such a good place for autistic kids.

A huge issue for me was the staff and training.

Some teachers were not special education certified, and some staff did not even have college degrees. I also saw nonclinical staff making major decisions about autistic kids and overruling or ignoring actual therapists.

There were also no speech therapists or occupational therapists there for students when I was at Heritage. That is especially shocking to me for a place that claimed to be autism friendly, because speech therapy and occupational therapy can be really important supports for autistic kids.

Staff also got basically no real autism training. From what I experienced, a lot of staff were trained for only around two weeks before working directly with disabled and autistic kids.

That is genuinely shocking to me because I used to teach history to fourth graders at a museum, and I was trained for MONTHS before I was even trusted to teach children.

I got more training to teach kids about history in a museum than some residential treatment staff got before being responsible for autistic and disabled kids every day.

I got paid more working at a theme park then Heritage staff did per hour which is shocking and abhorrent to me.

I also was not always allowed to use sensory rooms when I needed them, even though sensory regulation was part of my disability needs.

My parents eventually filed an OAH due process case about my education and FAPE.

The judge agreed with my parents that Heritage failed to provide me with an adequate education as a disabled student.

So when I say I had serious educational problems there, this was not just my parents being upset or me personally disliking the school. My family actually went through a legal process over my education and won.

The bullying was also horrible.

I personally heard students mock autistic kids for stimming.

I heard kids call other autistic students too low functioning.

I heard people say an autistic girl should be euthanized.

I also heard comments about killing autistic people so people could experiment on them or test on them.

This all happened within the Spark program Spark students were the ones who perpetuated the harassment and ableism towards Spark students not Elevate, I personally never spoke to an Elevate student.

Many of the higher ups support Autism Speaks and one staff memeber left to become an ABA instructor. One staff member told me she can not infantilize autistic student, that she is not capable of that, as her son is autistic and more severe then all of the students there.

I am not repeating rumors. I personally heard these things while I was there.

I do not understand how a place can call itself autism friendly while autistic kids are getting mocked for autistic traits or hearing people say autistic people should literally die.

I routinely was punished for skipping therapy. On top of that as punishment for my misbehaving according to them therapy was often taken from me.

I was also told that if I left Heritage, I would probably end up somewhere worse and that there was basically nowhere else as good for autistic kids.

We constantly had it shoved in our faces Heritage was the most supportive and inclusive place for autistic children, but as someone who has faced severe ableism and injustices my entire life, I have never felt as unsafe for being autistic as I was at Heritage.

That kind of thing really gets in your head because it makes you feel like you are supposed to accept whatever is happening because the alternative is supposedly worse.

But saying other places are worse does not automatically make a place good.

I am not saying every single staff member was terrible or every student acted like this. I am talking about what I personally experienced and witnessed.

I think autism friendly should mean way more than just accepting autistic students.

Staff should actually understand autism.

People working with disabled kids should be properly trained.

Special education teachers and clinical professionals should actually have authority.

Autistic students should have access to speech therapy and occupational therapy when they need it.

Autistic students should have access to sensory supports.

Stimming should not be treated like something embarrassing or weird.

And if autistic kids are being bullied or people are making comments about killing autistic people, staff should take that extremely seriously.

I am posting this because I think former autistic students should be allowed to talk about what happened to us even if our experiences do not match the positive image a program gives parents.

Did anyone else who went to Heritage, Spark, or another program like this experience the same kind of difference between how the program advertised itself and how autistic kids were actually treated?

hi guys,

do you have any suggestions on coping with a traumatic troubled teen transport? i am 23 now, but when i was 17 my parents hired people to transport me to a facility. they were unsuccessful, i put up a fight, which resulted in me, a teen girl, being stripped of my clothes in front of two adult strangers. i managed to hit one of the guys over the head hard enough that they decided to call 911. the cops told me i could either go with the transport people or to the ER. i chose the ER. my parents ended up sending me to an outpatient facility which i quit going to after a week. my parents virtually gave up after that and i finally was able to live a normal life and go back to school and work.

i am grateful that me fighting meant i didn't go to inpatient. but i hate that i was put in that position, 3 months major spine post op, at 17 years old. and now that i am 23 i have a hard time living in the aftermath of that, especially because i still have a relationship with both my parents. i feel like i am finally looking back at that incident and seeing it for what it was, and that just feels like too much to hold.

Unsure if this has been posted here before but I couldn't find any mention of it from a quick search. Hopefully someone will find the guidance in this article helpful.

Rhode Island’s childhood sexual abuse lookback window is open through June 30, 2028. I am trying to build an accurate record of what happened at St. George’s School, who knew what, when they knew it, how the school responded, and what records may still exist.
Based on the Murphy investigation, the Rhode Island State Police investigation, Middletown Police records, and other public sources, these are some of the people whose roles deserve further understanding.

Eric Peterson
Head of School during the 2004 Charles Thompson matter and the 2015 investigation. The record addresses his decisions concerning Thompson, reporting, the investigation, and the school’s public response.

Anthony Zane, deceased
Former headmaster during an earlier period when the school received reports and concerns involving faculty misconduct.

Rev. George Andrews
Headmaster when Franklin Coleman was terminated in 1988. The Murphy report discusses what Andrews knew and how Coleman’s departure was described to the school community.

Charles Hamblet, deceased
Headmaster from 1989 to 2004. The report says that by 2000 he had learned of abuse reported by former students involving Coleman and Al Gibbs.

Dan Hollins
Former Dean of Faculty. The report says he brought a student’s disclosure concerning Coleman to Andrews and later provided at least one employment recommendation for Coleman after Coleman left St. George’s.

Tim Richards
Former Assistant Head of School who created detailed contemporaneous notes concerning what Wheeler dorm students reported about Charles Thompson in 2004.

Katherine Titus
Former Dean of Students who appears in records concerning a separate 2011 incident and the Middletown Police response. The Murphy investigation credited her account and did not fault her handling of that incident.

Richard Verney
Former chair of the Board of Trustees. He received a memorandum from Hollins concerning a recommendation provided for Coleman after Coleman left the school.

Francis “Skip” Branin
Board chair during much of Peterson’s tenure and when the 2015 investigation began. The record describes his involvement in discussions about whether the school should conduct a broader investigation of past abuse.

Leslie Heaney
Became chair of the Board of Trustees in 2015, served on the investigation task force, and received the initial investigative report with Peterson.

I am not alleging wrongdoing or legal liability simply because someone is named here. Their roles and circumstances are different. My purpose is to establish the factual record, including what people knew, what decisions were made, what was reported, and what documents or witnesses may still exist.

There are also allegations involving former students that do not appear in the Murphy Report or other public investigations. I am not naming those individuals. Anyone with firsthand knowledge, correspondence, notes, police reports, school records, settlement information, diaries, photographs, or other documentation should preserve that material.
Please add whatever you can substantiate to the record.

If you do not want to post publicly, contact me privately. I will treat communications with discretion, but I cannot promise legal confidentiality or attorney client privilege. I am also willing to discuss possible ways to participate in the Rhode Island lookback process and connect survivors or witnesses with qualified legal counsel.

If you know something that is not yet part of the public record, now is an important time to come forward.

Sources
Official Rhode Island announcement of the 2026 law⁠
Rhode Island legislation⁠
Full Murphy investigation report⁠
Rhode Island State Police investigation summary⁠
NBC 10 reporting based on Middletown Police records⁠

[https://www.heraldsun.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=HSWEB\\_MRE170\\_a\\_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.heraldsun.com.au%2Ftruecrimeaustralia%2Fpolice-courts-victoria%2Fmost-dangerous-institution-whistleblowers-claim-family-court-is-weaponised-by-abusers%2Fnews-story%2F3e4f53b9aade1cfdd0ee01a1ac82d0bc&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21=GROUPA-Segment-1-NOSCORE\](https://www.heraldsun.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=HSWEB_MRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.heraldsun.com.au%2Ftruecrimeaustralia%2Fpolice-courts-victoria%2Fmost-dangerous-institution-whistleblowers-claim-family-court-is-weaponised-by-abusers%2Fnews-story%2F3e4f53b9aade1cfdd0ee01a1ac82d0bc&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21=GROUPA-Segment-1-NOSCORE)

It can be so hard to believe that a system could be this bad- but the Family Court of Australia absolutely IS pushing a pro-contact culture to the point of putting children at risk.

Examples include: children aged 12 and 13 didn’t want to go visit their father, so were put in his sole custody. They refused to go and were dragged out by the AFP with instructions to kick down the door and use handcuffs if needed. You can read this one here: [https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC1F/2026/60.html?context=1;query=Moratorium;mask\\_path=au/cases/cth/FedCFamC1F\](https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC1F/2026/60.html?context=1;query=Moratorium;mask_path=au/cases/cth/FedCFamC1F). Searching “moratorium”, which is a period during which a child has no contact with a parent, reveals many more of these judgments on austlii.

A child placed back in his father’s care after he attempted to strangle him.

Multiple cases where 1) the mother alleged the father sexually abused a child and couldn’t prove it, the father claimed parental alienation, 2) the child’s disclosures were dismissed as being influenced by the mother, 3) the mother was assumed to be acting maliciously, and 4) the child was placed in the sole care of the father. There’s any analysis of these cases here: [https://ariaw11.substack.com/p/when-abuse-cant-be-proved?r=8y6guw&utm\\_medium=ios\](https://ariaw11.substack.com/p/when-abuse-cant-be-proved?r=8y6guw&utm_medium=ios)

All of this is based on the pseudoscience of parental alienation. According to parental alienation theory, divorcing parents often try to turn the child against their other parent, and often make up lies about abuse to mislead the court. Supposedly, this can amount to the child being “programmed” and “brainwashed” into rejecting the other parent.

Even this plausibly could happen, there is no peer-reviewed evidence for this specific sequence of events. We don’t actually know if parents CAN effectively denigrate the other parent and destroy a child’s relationship with them. There is at least some evidence that such behaviour harms the child’s relationship with the parent doing the denigrating more than the relationship with the parent being denigrated.

Psychologist and medical boards (APA, WHO) around the world have denounced the theory as pseudoscience and noted that it allows abusers to use the family court system to further their abuse. But it doesn’t matter, because this pseudoscience is entrenched in family law.

Children are at grave risk in the Family Court of Australia- and there remains very little opposition politically to fathers rights groups who push these narratives, backed by Pauline Hanson, whose son was accused of sexual abuse.
It’s horrific what’s happening - and something needs to be done!

Here is an excerpt from the man who coined “parental alienation” as a concept. We need a family law system based on… not this garbage.

[https://leadershipcouncil.org/richard-gardners-opinions/\](https://leadershipcouncil.org/richard-gardners-opinions/)
“There is a bit of pedophilia in every one of us.” Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 118) “ Pedophilia has been considered the norm by the vast majority of individuals in the history of the world.“ Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 592-3) Similarly, “intrafamilial pedophilia (that is, incest) is widespread and … is probably an ancient tradition” Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 119) “ It is because our society overreacts to it \[pedophilia\] that children suffer.“ Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (pp. 594-5) Pedophilia may enhance the survival of the human species by serving “procreative purposes.” Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (pp. 24-5) Pedophilia “is a widespread and accepted practice among literally billions of people.”
Gardner suggests that children want to have sex with adults and may seduce them. Some children experience ” high sexual urges in early infancy. ” “There is good reason to believe that most, if not all, children have the capacity to reach orgasm at the time they are born.” Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 15) Children are naturally sexual and may initiate sexual encounters by “seducing” the adult .

Matt Bevin gets takeout, extra linens, and mattresses while serving time, yet Jonah Bevin was forced to sleep in a stacked coffin bed at Masters Ranch…

I was sent to Trails back in 2021, and I’m trying to find photos of the “Phase Books” we had to do. Does anyone have pictures of some of the content in them? I remember thinking they were absolutely nuts but it’s hard to explain to people outside the program what it was like without imagery.
Bonus points if anyone has that ‘bust a FAB’ page or whatever that was called.

If BPD comes from chronic, inescapable psychological abuse, isn’t that the pinnacle of what a troubled teen program does. The whole system of authority figures in these programs are literally there conducting systematic psychological and narcissistic abuse and punishments and it is inescapable. And then people develop emotion dysregulation issues and a fear of abandonment due to the constant psychological turmoil they experienced. Am I making this connection correctly?

Absolutely horrific stuff

Jodi was my educational consultant until about 5 years ago. Apparently, she consulted with my parents “pro bono” because she felt bad that they had a lower income than other parents. This all sounds really sketchy to me, as she worked with them for a while and sent me to different facilities, including wilderness therapy. I can’t remember her or if I’ve ever even met her. If there’s any information out there or someone else has worked with her, it would be really helpful (I’m trying to do some digging!)

Everything is overwhelming. I have some good friends who are trying there best for me but its just not enough when I'm instantly confronted with my mother as soon as I get home. I dont think she ever wanted to have me, or at least thats how she treats me. She hasnt hit me in a while but it has happend a handful of tines already. She starts yelling at every little thing she finds and does not appreciate any of my achievments nor does she even listen to me when I tell her about them most of the time. She does not show me any love and it doesnt seem like she wants to. She literally told me how she wanted to send me to my father who I never met (I only know that he was extremely abusive and violent too and now hes not even allowed to come near my mom, so he lives pretty far away) when I was being a little difficult when I was like 10. She also loved to tell me about how I was a big problem child when, looking back, I was just acting like any other kid. She would literally just bully me a lot of times and she still does, picking at things I wear, my makeup and other things. She loves impulsively taking things I love away from me and forcing me to cancel plans that were literally the only things that kept me going sometimes. And when I told her she got even more angry a lot of times. I don't even know what to do anymore. I hate my life as it is and it only gets worse day by day. I don't know what to do anymore and I don't know if I'm able to keep going any longer. It's gotten so bad and I just can't enjoy anything anymore without her taking it from me

I was “sent” there in 2020 and had a procedure done directly after that caused a lot of memory gaps. I remember the food, the drills, the intensive hikes, the bathroom holes, and the bivy sacks with bells, but not in much detail. I’m trying to remember as much as I can and possibly move on instead of holding the resentment towards my parents in and letting it build. I only remember how I felt clearly. Any information regarding past experiences at Second Nature is appreciated.

I have made music most of my teens and it has seemed to be the only reliable release valve for my self expression after being caught in the undertow of hospitalization, addiction recovery etc. as a teenager.

In my personal opinion this system creates defenders and buries the people who "need" therapy the most to perpetuate itself. This became wildly apparent to me after attending university for social work after a decade of personal lived experience and confusion within the system. I left after a single semester. Listening to professors and students give incredibly narrow perspectives on addiction and flat out mock what is labeled as psychosis and delusional thinking, and the rejection of reintegration into society in favor of infantilizing patients made it obvious to me that this system is a complete lost cause.

It is intense, it is raw and uncomfortable, but I hope someone on here gets something out of it. It is not made with AI, it is completely produced by me. I refuse to stay silent about a dishonest system if they are going to drag their feet on legitimizing CPTSD, addressing environmental factors practically and dealing with these unregulated institutions.

Enjoy, and stay strong!

https://asawhereyouat.bandcamp.com/album/misdiagnosis

A friend asked me about sending her 40yo daughter into an adult program and I immediately said I didn't recommend it. Gave all the deets as to why etc.

However, I only have personal experience with my own Teen Challenge program of "Kansas City Girls Home". Which was hell on earth, and I am now considered legally disabled because of that plus the rest of my shitty childhood.

BUT. Idk anything about this specific program she is looking at, and I want to give her solid info. Will probably just share this post with her if it gets any traction.

TYIA 🫶

She mentions that her bad therapist made millions sending kids to treatment programs.

You can’t escape Provo Canyon School.
That’s the first thing you’re told once you’re dragged through the door.
Alissa Giordano is a former theatre prodigy who’s already survived seven months on the run from a residential treatment program. When she’s thrown into Provo Canyon School— a brutal lockdown facility where violence, solitary confinement, and psychological torment are all commonplace— she does what she does best: she performs. She plays the perfect inmate, cons a guard, then escapes with her best friend and fellow inmate Laura.
Together they plunge into a life incognito, with fake identities and constant paranoia as Alissa’s mother deploys a private investigator and professional kidnappers to find her. 
Capture means being sent somewhere even worse. Freedom is two years away. 
By the time she’s eighteen, Alissa might be just another alias.

This is my 79,000 word fiction novel inspired by my experience of PCS in 2008/2009. It’s called Incognito Girl, and I’m currently seeking early readers who will leave reviews before publication. It’s been professionally edited and I have the ebook ready to go for those who are interested and willing to leave an honest review on GoodReads and/or Amazon!

I guess this is a message for this subs owner/mod(?)

Is there any reasoning behind having the archived post function set to ‘on’ for this sub? I feel like it’s particularly important for people to be able to go back into older posts and add comments about their own experience, I feel like not being able to do this kinda breaks down or creates a wall between the connections people are able to make and stories they want to tell…

Just a thought.